


The Seidr Tales

by Only_1_Truth



Series: Chaos and Logic Chronicles [5]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Gods!AU, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, Loki needs hugs but doesn't even know it, Magic, Multi, Odin's A+ parenting started very early, Odin-bashing, Violence, War, flagrant misuse of both Marvel and Norse stories, sort of, very NON-canon backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 18:32:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6765139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who's a god and who isn't depends on who's telling the tale - who has power and who doesn't depends on who can keep it.  </p><p>Who wins the spoils of war and who suffers the consequences depends on who the winner is.  </p><p>The backstory of how Loki Laufeyson (prince, Jotun, beloved son) became Loki Odinson (unwilling captive, warprize, and pawn of the Asgardian throne).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seidr Tales

**Author's Note:**

> Now, if you’re me, you’re trying to figure the logistics of Bond being in that battle as one of their War-god foot-soldiers… And don’t worry, I’m working on getting back to the rest of the series, too! Part 4, ‘Pagan of the Good Times’ is not forgotten :)  
> Although it probably doesn’t matter, I actually was in Oxford for a short while studying Norse mythology - however, if any of you are TRUE scholars of the Norse myths (or even the Marvel versions), you’ll either get a real kick out of this or have an instant brain aneurism. So I highly recommend leaving your knowledge at the door as I bastardize, inbreed, and just generally rewrite all of the old (or new, ye Marvel fans) stories you now and love. See the end for more detailed notes regarding this world.

The winds of Jotunheim cut like swords of glass, each a frozen, gleaming claw that slashed across the lands in wild, broad sweeps.  Those same winds howled in through the doors, but parted around the Allmother like threatened curs.  As Odin walked in alongside her, the sounds of war crashing around him as if he’d dragged it all in after him from outside, a voice like seven avalanches rumbled from across the audience chamber.

“I see that breeding runs true.  I wonder, will any think to question how the blood of your son runs when he begins to show such powers as your wife possesses?”

Odin narrowed his one eye at the Jotun king who stood across the room.  Instead of answering, he gave a jerk of his spear, commanding his wife without looking at her, “Go, Frigga.  I can handle one malcontent.”  The Allmother, her battle-robes as liberally splashed with blood as her husband’s, pursed her lips for a brief moment before darting off to the left, down one of the adjoining halls.  

Across from Odin, Laufey watched, making an aborted movement to go after the fleeing goddess before being halted by his own injuries - and the lifted spear in Odin’s hand.  There was still the vast hall between them, but as a God of Combat, Odin would have little trouble hurling it across the distance and into the meat of his foe.  Laufey, a different beast altogether, curved his cerulean mouth into a smile that resembled the ragged cracks in an old glacier.  His broken-stone voice continued as if he weren’t dripping black ichor all over the floor, “Then again, as one who rose to godhood through the blood and power of your brothers, I suppose that the only thing that matters to you is power.  You lead a sunny life with a shadowed past, Odin-son-of-Bor.”

“Be silent, Laufey,” Odin spat, his own voice ringing.  The spear veritably vibrated in his hand with eagerness, sucking in the power of its master and becoming a magnet for shed blood.  It had already shed an ocean of it on the icy land outside, where the war against the Frost Giants was tipping in favor of the Asgardians.  Gods of Combat fought alongside lesser Gods of Battle, and all those who lived and thrived by bloodshed and the sword waded through their enemies like a vast tide.  “Your time has ended, and I can only be glad that I was the one deemed worthy to end your scourge,” the Allfather finished with solemn harshness.  

Laufey was huge, and he was already bloody and gored, but his eyes glinted like fire-lit rubies as he leaned forward over his knees and seemed to… ripple.  “ _ My _ scourge?”  His laughter threatened to crack the very air, a pantomime of a mountain crashing down.  “You flatter me, war-monger.  You call yourself a God of Combat, but you may as well crave the same dishonorable blood that your War-gods so fight over.”

Anger finally broke through Odin’s mask, and it seemed that his spear leapt through the air at the same time that Laufey moved.  The massive Jotun was fast for his size, as if the rules that governed normal bodies didn’t apply, but the spear still ripped across the side of his ribs and pinned him by his flesh to the throne behind him.  The Jotun’s howl revealed teeth that were more fangs, but then that ripple spread.  When he made as if to pull free of the spear - which, while tiny, held the power of a god in its wood - his skin stretched and morphed, growing mottled and off-white instead of deep cobalt.  Odin drew his sword as Laufey grinned a bloody grin.  

And began to transform.  

“You forget that you’re not the only kind of god this universe breeds,” Laufey rumbled as his body elongated and stretched and twisted  _ around _ the spear, no longer a giant but a massive serpent, seven red eyes on its chalk-white head, horns curling back from its skull as a mouth opened to reveal three rows of teeth each easily as big as Odin’s sword.  

“ **_You think yourselves the only ones who are gods_ ** ?” Laufey roared, coils upon coils of his body looping forward, growing clawed feet as they neared the Allfather, scoring the stone and disappearing right back into Laufey’s body when Odin swung at them.  “ **_You dare underestimate me from your pedestal, when I’ve been your equal all along_ ** ?”  Laufey’s rage shook the walls.  His body shortened, a defined torso building itself between the serpentine neck and tail, and he hunted Odin through the pillars of the audience hall as the Allfather retreated.  “ **_You keep a Vanir in your Aesir bed, and yet you deny that others outside your walls could be masters of their world such as you_ ** !”

“A hypocrisy that won’t matter once I remedy it,” Odin snarled back, scoring a hit on Laufey’s sandpaper hide, sword shearing through it and painting the floor with more blood.  Laufey’s roar was echoed deeper with his house, where another battle raged on.  When Laufey’s reptilian head swiveled, horns scraping the ceiling, Odin charged in and nearly cleeved one of the shapeshifter’s many legs from his body.  Before Odin could do more damage, however, Laufey transformed again, this time shrinking his form to a great horse - growing four more legs and replacing the one he’d lost.  

Speaking from a new mouth but with no less power, Laufey continued to bait, “ **_You covet what you do not have - were I to name you, I’d name you a God of Greed_ ** .”

“I’m not coveting this wasteland, I’m cleansing it.”

“ **_Then why send your Vanir wife to the bedchamber of my child, hm?  I understand more than you think, Odin-Half-Blind_ ** ,” Laufey raged with all the coldness of a polar storm, frostbite in every word even as he charged.  “ **_You woo and bed an enemy to beget a hybrid whelp that the world will tremble at - a whelp that no doubt already eats out of the palm of your hand.  Now you seek another weapon_ ** .”  Laufey’s many legs allowed him to turn a corner faster than anticipated, and equine teeth became sheering fangs as the Jotun snapped at Odin’s retreating heels.  That rumble-low voice continued to emanate from Laufey’s barrel-chest, “ **_I know what you fear, Odin-Hanged-One.  Not death, not even dishonor, for all that you call yourself a God of Honorable Combat - no_ ** .”

“And what do I fear?” Odin challenged, suddenly appearing from behind Laufey and nearing running him through.  Only by transforming again - this time into a massive bird with four taloned paws - did Laufey escape, but not before more of his blood was spattered and an inhuman shriek wrung from him.  Odin watched the Jotun back off, flying as far as he could with one wing torn.  “Certainly not you.”

“No, not me,” Laufey admitted, wheezing, his beak dripping ichor.  His eyes - only two again, but still as red as the blood of the sun - were entirely too cunning and knowing as they lifted to Odin’s one-eyed gaze, however.  “But just as you could have no brothers to contest your throne, nor a father to keep you from it, you cannot stand the thought of usurpers - you fear that all of the power you’ve amassed will be stolen from you.”

There was more roaring and screaming from deeper within the cold stone building, but this time, some if it sounded less like a shapeshifting Jotun and more like a woman - and this time, it was Odin who startled.  Laufey, stumbling as he weakened, grinned a terrible grin that leaked dark blood down the feathers of his throat.  “You wished to kill me and sent your Allmother to steal from my nest, but didn’t think that my own wife would defend it?”

Horror was evident on Odin’s face as he realized that Laufey had never been outnumbered, and Frigga was now battling Farbauti instead of just stealing the Jotun child as planned.  Seeing the opening, Laufey suddenly ceased his staggering and straightening, his body exploding and doubling in size again even as a dragonish head tore free of the hooked beak and avian face.  Still covered in feathers but now a massive and legged serpent once again, Laufey sought to bury Odin in his coils.  “ **_You will not have Loki_ ** !” the shapeshifting god of that cold land swore, voice thunderous once again.

Despite Laufey’s insinuations, Odin did find his power in the art of one-on-one combat, so even when he should have fallen - his small, humanoid body pitted against a monster the size of a house - he held his own.  His spear flew back to his hand with such power that it tore right through Laufey’s chest, and the great Jotun wheezed and choked, already-wounded body convulsing.  When the spear was spun to stab him a second time, Laufey flinched back, but it was like being chased by a hoard of razors, power making Odin into more than a mere man even as it made his spear into far more than a metal-tipped twig.  

But still, Laufey would not have fallen had not a blast of green energy ripped out of the hallway and engulfed the Jotun’s entire head with gold and emerald flames.  The impact threw Laufey aside, and his body sprawled to twitch weakly on the floor.  

As Odin walked over to his fallen - but still breathing - foe, he glanced back at the source of the magic, the  _ seidr _ .  He could just see Frigga standing there, something wriggling and bundled up at her feet, and one hand outstretched before her wild and startled face.  She looked a wreck, but was alive.

Buoyed by success so that he barely felt his own wounds, the Allfather stood where he could look at the scorched horror of Laufey’s face.  The Jotun was already starting to turn back, the burn flesh following him to his gigantic, humanoid form, but one eye was still whole enough to open and roll up dazedly to Odin’s scarred face.  

It was Odin’s turn to smile.  “You forget, Laufey, that I’m not the only one who can take power from those I kill.”

And with that, he plunged his spear down into the eye that watched him and through the brain and skull beneath.  Power crackled through the air as victory shrieked through Odin’s veins, trippling his power even as it became unnecessary, the ruler of Jotenheim following his queen into death.  His power was dragged out of his veins as he died, sucked into the skin of the Aesir god who would arm himself with all that he could.  

The power of his brothers.

The alliance of a Vanir wife.

The loyalty of a son who loved him blindly and who carried the powers of both godly lines within him.

And the power that came with slaying his enemies and making their son - and therefore  _ his _ power - Odin’s own.   

~^~ 

Ever since Thor had learned to walk, he’d been a terror, and once he’d learned to run and demand a tiny spear like his father's, even the weaponsmaster Tyr wouldn’t have boasted that he could control the prince.  Thankfully, most of Thor’s antics were just the blind, impulsive revels of childhood, so instead of misusing his rank he generally just ran around like a hellion and broke things.  

Tripping over his toy spear, Thor’s headlong race down the hall turned into a truly spectacular tumble that fetched him up against one of the walls just beneath the window.  Instead of crying, Thor took a dizzy moment to stare at the ceiling before breaking up into laughter - laughter that went largely unheard, because he’d lost his keepers long ago.  It had become Thor’s favorite game to evade them, although he liked to think of himself as a great beast evading predators.  When Odin sent Hugin and Munin to mind him, or Geri and Freki, this game was decidedly harder, but Thor still had high hopes of one day becoming the predator in the game.

Just as soon as he got a new spear.  Turning his head, he pouted at the sight of it cracked in half.  

One half looked as though it had clattered off down the stairs.  Never once thinking how fortunately he was to not have clattered off down the stairs himself (for while Asgardians were tough as a whole, they were still quite fragile when they barely stood as tall as their father’s elbow), Thor rolled over and pushed himself up, strands of shaggy blond hair escaping the loose tie his nursemaid had put in only an hour ago.  Had Thor been taller, he’d have been able to see out the window and know that the Asgardian army was returned, flooding the streets with weary triumph and returning soldiers.  

By the time Thor got to the bottom of the stairs, he’d lost interest in his broken toy.  Despite often being the prey-animal in his games (courtesy of the fact that he was often babysat by ravens and wolves), Thor had the instincts of a hunter in his blood, and when he heard something in the otherwise abandoned halls, he drew his little body alert and listened.  Silent in a way that would have shocked anyone who knew him, Thor cocked his head, one half of a spear hanging from his hand.  

He thought he heard crying.  

Trotting on softly-booted feet (the finest and supplest of leather, to befit a child-prince), Thor followed the sound, but was startled to soon hear the voices of his parents even as the sobs became more pronounced.  

His mother sounded anxious, and he just caught her saying, “...We can’t do this.  It’s bad enough that we took him-”

“Do you want him to remember then?”  Thor skidded to a halt at hearing his father’s harsher tones.  His father never spoke to him like that, like a door slamming.  “He’s nearly as old as Thor.  Do you want him to be haunted by the memory of how he came to live with us?”  Thor’s father’s voice dropped but was still audible, and somehow still mean-sounding, “Or do you want him to be the second son you cannot have?”

Thor vaguely remembered hearing arguments behind closed doors that revolved around having babies - or, rather, not having babies.  To be honest, Thor didn’t know why they weren’t just happy with him, because he was perfect.  But the matters of adults were largely mysterious to him, and also rarely as fun as stealing bread-cakes from the kitchens.  

There was no answer for a moment, and then Thor heard his mother yelp as if she’d just stepped on a thorn, and then the rattling squeak of a door being shoved open.  Shouts from both parents followed, but by that point, Thor found himself greatly distracted by the sight of something running towards him.  

Before the prince could do anything but blink stupidly, he had a big, black cat running into him.  The two collided largely by accident, as the cat rounded the corner sloppily and as Thor failed to get out of the way.  As the cat’s eyes widened - its oversized paws on Thor’s chest suggesting a lot of growth in its future - Thor just stared back in amazed shock, and they both ended up in a heap on the stone floor.  

It was reflex for Thor to grab onto the body piled on top of him.  He wrestled with the servants’ children all the time, even if people sometimes called it improper, and he knew that he was strong for his size and age.  As he wrapped his arms around the cat, however, the fur beneath his palms became skin of a mazarine blue.  He felt like he could trace the paler patterns on it with his fingers, and was still in a state of innocent awe when the cat’s - boy’s - head lifted to stare at him with wide vermillion eyes.  

Maybe if Thor had been older - old enough to know that monsters were more than exciting words in story books, old enough to know the Asgardian hatred for the Jotun, old enough to know that he was  _ looking _ at one - he would have reacted in horror or revulsion.  Instead, he saw nothing so much as the perfect end to today’s boredom, and after a moment of awed staring, his face split in a wide and friendly grin.  

The shouting of Odin and Frigga was getting closer, but for a moment, Thor and the blue-skinned boy just stared at each other from where they lay, one atop the other, on the floor.  The prince gasped a little in delighted shock as the blue skin faded to an approximation of his own skin-tones, albeit paler, like a mask imperfectly crafted.  The black hair remained, chin-length and as silky as Hugin or Munin’s wings, but now he looked just like any other little boy that Thor played with.  

Almost, anyway.  As Thor looked up into eyes that were now as green as forest-moss, he frowned, troubled, because tears were smeared all around them, and dripped now towards a trembling mouth that was even then parting in a tiny, wounded cry.  

“Loki-” Frigga started to shout, then rounded the corner herself and took in the sight.  She froze and went silent, and was nearly run over by her husband.  Then both of them stared, as the transformed Jotun boy clutched at their son’s shirt and shivered atop Thor’s little chest and cringed under the grip of his hands.  

Eventually, the startled look faded from Odin’s face, and he exchanged a look with his wife that said more than Thor could ever have interpreted even if he weren’t so preoccupied.  After a moment, Frigga sighed, and then walked forward.  

Thor said nothing and Loki didn’t make a peep either as the Allmother came to stand over them, hands on her knees for a moment and mouth open as if to say something.  Her eyes looked a bit bloodshot, but she wasn’t crying like this boy was, and Thor was confused.  Frigga ultimately said nothing, however, instead sealing her lips and shaking her head.  Her hands reached out and gripped Loki’s skinny upper arms, and only then did the strange, shape-changing boy make a noise, a broken cry that abruptly had Thor’s heart twisting in sympathy, too.  Not knowing why or even what was going on, Thor sat up and felt a tear run down his own face as Frigga drew Loki away from him.  She had the boy stand, and with a look of determination that was somehow frightening, she placed both hands on either side of his head, hovering a few inches from his inky hair.  

Just as Frigga clenched her teeth and closed her eyes in concentration, the black-haired boy regained his voice and cried out, as terrified and piercing as the cry of a baby rabbit when it’s caught, “Please, don’t, I just want to go back to my-!”

Power like a burst of reddish sunlight suddenly radiated from Frigga’s palms and right into either side of Loki’s head, and he instantly stopped talking even as his eyes rolled up in his head.  He sagged, falling to his knees, and knelt there swaying with all expression gone from his face.  

Thor was so busy staring in petrified shock that he wasn’t listening and didn’t see Frigga turn to Odin and say, “I can do it to Loki, but I can’t do it to Thor - not to our son.”

“No, and I wouldn’t ask it of you, my love,” Odin said, voice gentle again like Thor chose to remember it, “The Jotun  _ seidr _ is new to both of us, but at least Loki is used to it.”

Frigga nodded, slowly and then more swiftly, as if convincing herself of this.  “We’ll have to see how well I did,” she said as she looked back down at the kidnapped boy at her feet.  

The answer came in almost that exact moment, as Loki’s eyes - still vibrant green, like chips of emerald, or new leaves, or sunlit jade - fluttered open.  There was still wetness drying on his face, but he didn’t return to crying as he looked around, blinking torpidly like a newly awoken baby bird.  He didn’t appear alarmed as he saw Odin or Frigga, although maybe sleepily confused.  Something about Thor, however, as he glanced over to see another boy his size, made him smile.  “Hello,” he said, as if meeting for the first time.  

**Author's Note:**

> Like all the best lies, there’s a bit of truth sewn into this monstrosity that you just read (or haven’t read, if you’re chaotic type of person and have skipped ahead for spoilers): In Norse mythology, there _was_ a war between the Aesir and the Vanir. However, by all accounts that I’ve found, Frigga and Odin were on the same side for that one. Thus, here you find my first lie in the name of world-building. Another half-lie is in regards to _seidr_ \- long-story-short, this is Norse magic. I’ve twisted it, however, making it _Jotun_ magic, and Frigga and Odin only have it because they were able to steal it from Loki’s parents. While Loki’s power over the _seidr_ grows, theirs will wane, because he was born with his and they have a finite supply of stolen power. The nicknames that Laufey uses for Odin are also largely true, and come from mythology - take a peak as the list of Odin’s titles. It’s a _long_ one! A little truth that comes from the comic-book side of this fabrication is that Odin _did_ kill his brothers to gain power (loosely speaking - I might have made Odin more villainous in this regard, but I could totally see him getting his brother’s kill on purpose in the name of power… and I could see him as being responsible for Bor’s death, too).  
>  To understand _my_ world more, here is some explanation that didn’t easily fit into the prose. I’m assuming that hybrids like Thor are so rare as to be nonexistent - Thor wouldn’t allow just anyone to wed a Vanir, and I hint at the fact that the two of them are virtually infertile together. In other words, Thor’s a one-off, so don’t expect a lot of other characters with dual godly citizenship. I’m also [finally] going to list the descriptions of what everyone is - for all of this series, not just this installment. For clarity’s sake, Laufey was right: there are more gods than merely Odin’s people. Everyone in this list is, in fact, a god, even if they don’t have a ‘God of something-rather’ title. In italics are their specific lineages - i.e., what breed of god are they. If nothing is in Italics, you can assume that they are native gods of earth.  
>  Loki’s mother, Farbauti (user of _seidr, Jotun_ )  
> Loki’s father, Laufey (user of _seidr, Jotun_ )  
> Loki: Trickster God (user of _seidr, Jotun_ )  
> Frigga: Goddess of Air ( _Vanir_ )  
> Odin: God of Honorable Combat? ( _Aesir_ )  
> Thor: God of Thunder and Honorable Combat ( _Aesir/Vanir hybrid_ )  
> Bond: God of War ( _Aesir_ )  
> Q: New God  
> Alec: Old God, Trickster God


End file.
